In the nineties I founded a music company called BLISTER, so christened because I wanted to convey to Interactive art directors, animators and casual game makers (among our principal clients) the impact the strategic use of branded sound might play on the senses. This in the days when audio was often deemed 'too big' or 'too slow' (not to mention, 'unessential') in the construction of an online experience.
But in the last decade sound has gone from being considered too unwieldy for the Internet to being unquestionably integral to just about any and every interactive experience one can think of. And interactive audio production has become an art form and recognized profession unto itself.
The funny thing is:
We've all visited sonified web sites that provide an option to MUTE sound. But is there just one website that offers us the option to DESATURATE the color spectrum, so that we can view the thing in a more palatable Black and White? No, ha, but I wish there were, because the presumption still is that if anything is going to be annoying; it's going to be the sonic elements, not the visual elements.
Of course, they didn’t say that about my blue hair in 1983.
–But here lies a powerful argument regarding the weakness of design (and subsequent necessity of sonic enhancement). In a previous article I wrote:
"If design is the rocket, sound is the fuel that lifts it into our imagination, serving to imprint the image (of the vehicle it accompanies) into our memories, and even if the sound itself is goes unremembered."
Or vice versa: Practically speaking, Sound and Vision compliment each other, thereby creating an integrated experience; and by extension a seamless memory of, and emotional reaction to, a given event.
But in fact, visual fashions fade faster from our interest than even Top Ten Pop songs. The eye becomes jaded far quicker than the ear. TV commercials from the eighties look ancient. But today's kids and adults alike still enjoy dancing to Brit Pop Robo-Candy such as Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware's wonderfully askew Human League and Heaven 17.
Similarly, Leo Delibes 'Flower Duet' ('Viens Mallika' from the Opera 'Lakme') will likely outlast the famous Tony Scott Directed/ Howard Blake Arranged TV campaign for British Airways (that used the piece as a score).
Were the 'Flower Duet' actually commissioned by British Airways as its core audio branding asset, so much the better, but perhaps original commissions are no longer necessary to establish authentic branding. What I mean by that is, ideally, account executives at the airline, or attached to the airline's branding company, would have long beforehand distilled the BA mission, values and our corporate goals into an Identity Style Guide or Brand Manual that included parameters for execution of audio.
If initiated, the creative brief should have resulted in the commission of an original work that effectively conveyed the BA brand through music (Assuming, also, they secured a living composer whose talent was substantially equal to that of Delibes).
A few other pre-existing tracks have indeed managed to communicate a full breadth of a brand message. Chevrolet's use of Bob Seger's 'Like a Rock' comes immediately to mind. Yet, I think, overall, licensed (or otherwise non-commissioned, existing) pieces work best (in most cases) when they are part of a campaign, not when they are re-purposed as the fundamental branding asset. Although, as mentioned, sometimes such works can indeed be successfully retrofitted as a brand asset.
The argument does not apply to filmed or theatrical entertainment, for the simple reason that cinematic entertainment has longer legs than the advertising for it, or anything else for that matter.
Marketing, as with any campaign, is by its elemental nature, a temporary operation. In contrast, Fine Art, such as Music, is timeless, by default. Sure, any given recording will eventually sound dated, but rearrange the track using modern production tools –or simply play the thing yourself (if you're a musician)– and all of a sudden the music jumps back to life!
Pantone's 2007 Color of the Year was Chili Pepper. This year it was Blue Iris. Next year it will be something else. The eye continuously demands novel ways to distract it. And yet the western ear, give or take a few hundred years, will never tire of C Major.
Not to say some commercial art doesn't hold the same appeal as fine art. Some of it does, and I'd like to think that some of that which is held in such regard also included my participation. But note, a commercial cycle in the US might run for as little as 13 weeks –in the case of a Superbowl spot, ONE day– while every little ditty from a cheap pop song to a symphonic theme is routinely capable of surviving generations.
No doubt, shortly after the copyright runs out on many classic 20th century jingles, future composers will use them as fodder for more substantial works, much the same way Aaron Copeland borrowed the Shaker hymn 'Simple Gifts' as a theme for his ballet score, 'Appalachian Spring'.
Yet I would be surprised if any accompanying video (to those classic jingles) eeked out any further use beyond their value as vintage pop kitsch.
Showing posts with label Style Guide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Style Guide. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Friday, March 30, 2001
Branding With Audio
Branding With Audio
By Terry O'Gara
First published on March 30, 2001 by clickz.com
Advertisers too often limit branding potential to visuals alone. It's as though once a vision statement is drafted in the corporate boardroom, it frequently goes out the door voiceless.
Certainly television commercials give products some sort of voice with original scores or licensed tracks. But many of these scores do not serve the company or product identity. Instead they serve to enhance the commercial itself. Licensed tracks pose another problem. The commercials are transformed in the minds of viewers to music videos, and whether viewers identify the music with the product takes a back seat to the artist and to the video itself.
Traditional Scoring Serves the Film, Not the Brand
Most conversations between agency creatives and the music-production team are usually limited to a few adjectives that describe the target demographic. There may also be some talk about how the music should work with the edit or how the score will enhance the emotional relationship between the actors or clarify the story. But these are all issues that apply to the commercial as entertainment. There is usually little strategic thought invested in how to actually create with sound a bond between the consumer and the product.
Though it's easy to think marketers and their vendors have formed a creative alliance to sell products, this is not always the case in today's economy. Rather we're acting as matchmakers for producers and consumers. We're using advertising then not to sell but to network. We're introducing one good friend to another, and one of them happens to make something that, by the way, appeals to the lifestyle the other leads or aspires to.
Sometimes we can't even offer usefulness. We might try to promise uniqueness, but there may be few discernible differences between your product and your competitors'. One soda conveys universality while the other appeals to individuality. But oats are oats, and cola is cola. So if you're not accentuating the brand, then you're left pushing flavored water. However, as marketers, we know a little stimulation goes a long way.
Branding Through Sound
My specialty is sound. And I submit that unless you are using sound as effectively as possible, you're shortchanging your client. So the question arises: How does one go about creating a voice every bit as identifiable with the company as the building in which it dwells?
First let's change our perspective. I suggest we move away from thinking of commercials strictly as anecdotal short films with strategically placed product shots. Story telling by itself is only one device at our disposal to garner the interest and attention of our desired audience.
But branding beyond advertising means we want to do more than simply tell a story. What we really want to do is make an introduction and deliver a message. Branding is the vision statement given life, and it represents an opportunity to ingrain one's identity into the public consciousness. One highly effective way to do just this is with the prudent and thoughtful use of sound.
Creating a Philosophy of Sound
Some years ago I was the music producer on a campaign for a large investment bank. One of the VIPs came to our initial music presentation when everything was still in an embryonic stage. He was a layman. I sensed the more musically astute people in the room resented his presence. But I found that because he knew his brand thoroughly, he also understood how it should be conveyed sonically.
He didn't play a musical instrument, nor did he know any of the proper musical terms. But he knew how music made him feel and that different instruments evoked different moods. Most important, he could articulate his perceptions quite clearly. To me he represented the ideal client.
It's valuable to know not just how an audience will react but also, more precisely, how they can be made to react. Our VIP didn't know if he was listening to violins or contrabasses, but he knew the high strings evoked one mood, and the low strings another. The sound of the low strings conveyed "a sense of authority and power," and that's what he wanted.
So despite all the preproduction meetings in which the agency creative staff, the director, and the editor all discussed how the music should work with the cut or enhance the story, one brief conversation with someone who knew nothing about music proved to be the most valuable. And we, in turn, were then able to create an audio style guide that would influence the sound campaign for this account for years to come.
Although the same film-scoring issues surfaced with future spots for the same client (i.e., the story, the edit, etc.), we now had a philosophy of sound, the corporate vision statement as it applied to audio. Every new piece of music, no matter what the melody, was designed using the same palette of sounds and was thus easily identifiable as this client's sonic identity. One needn't even see the visuals to appreciate that your "Friends at the Bank" brought you this piece of music.
The Power of Sound in Branding
I put forward that every sound asset used in a commercial, on an in-store kiosk, or on a Web site should be easily identifiable as the voice of your company. Do you know what your company is saying right now?
If music in a marketing context does its job, it will inform as well as entertain. And if consumers -- that is, your audience -- call the company switchboard and ask who wrote the music and where they can buy a CD of it, then maybe you and your client should actually produce a promotional CD that consumers can take home and listen to whenever they want.
Branding beyond advertising means creating an experience that is free of an overt pitch yet is compelling enough that consumers will nevertheless identify it with your brand. If you've produced a CD, for instance, folks will listen to it while they eat, work out, make love, and your company will be the underscore to their lives. Oats may be oats, but if I'm making babies to your music, then chances are my babies will be eating your oats.
By Terry O'Gara
First published on March 30, 2001 by clickz.com
Advertisers too often limit branding potential to visuals alone. It's as though once a vision statement is drafted in the corporate boardroom, it frequently goes out the door voiceless.
Certainly television commercials give products some sort of voice with original scores or licensed tracks. But many of these scores do not serve the company or product identity. Instead they serve to enhance the commercial itself. Licensed tracks pose another problem. The commercials are transformed in the minds of viewers to music videos, and whether viewers identify the music with the product takes a back seat to the artist and to the video itself.
Traditional Scoring Serves the Film, Not the Brand
Most conversations between agency creatives and the music-production team are usually limited to a few adjectives that describe the target demographic. There may also be some talk about how the music should work with the edit or how the score will enhance the emotional relationship between the actors or clarify the story. But these are all issues that apply to the commercial as entertainment. There is usually little strategic thought invested in how to actually create with sound a bond between the consumer and the product.
Though it's easy to think marketers and their vendors have formed a creative alliance to sell products, this is not always the case in today's economy. Rather we're acting as matchmakers for producers and consumers. We're using advertising then not to sell but to network. We're introducing one good friend to another, and one of them happens to make something that, by the way, appeals to the lifestyle the other leads or aspires to.
Sometimes we can't even offer usefulness. We might try to promise uniqueness, but there may be few discernible differences between your product and your competitors'. One soda conveys universality while the other appeals to individuality. But oats are oats, and cola is cola. So if you're not accentuating the brand, then you're left pushing flavored water. However, as marketers, we know a little stimulation goes a long way.
Branding Through Sound
My specialty is sound. And I submit that unless you are using sound as effectively as possible, you're shortchanging your client. So the question arises: How does one go about creating a voice every bit as identifiable with the company as the building in which it dwells?
First let's change our perspective. I suggest we move away from thinking of commercials strictly as anecdotal short films with strategically placed product shots. Story telling by itself is only one device at our disposal to garner the interest and attention of our desired audience.
But branding beyond advertising means we want to do more than simply tell a story. What we really want to do is make an introduction and deliver a message. Branding is the vision statement given life, and it represents an opportunity to ingrain one's identity into the public consciousness. One highly effective way to do just this is with the prudent and thoughtful use of sound.
Creating a Philosophy of Sound
Some years ago I was the music producer on a campaign for a large investment bank. One of the VIPs came to our initial music presentation when everything was still in an embryonic stage. He was a layman. I sensed the more musically astute people in the room resented his presence. But I found that because he knew his brand thoroughly, he also understood how it should be conveyed sonically.
He didn't play a musical instrument, nor did he know any of the proper musical terms. But he knew how music made him feel and that different instruments evoked different moods. Most important, he could articulate his perceptions quite clearly. To me he represented the ideal client.
It's valuable to know not just how an audience will react but also, more precisely, how they can be made to react. Our VIP didn't know if he was listening to violins or contrabasses, but he knew the high strings evoked one mood, and the low strings another. The sound of the low strings conveyed "a sense of authority and power," and that's what he wanted.
So despite all the preproduction meetings in which the agency creative staff, the director, and the editor all discussed how the music should work with the cut or enhance the story, one brief conversation with someone who knew nothing about music proved to be the most valuable. And we, in turn, were then able to create an audio style guide that would influence the sound campaign for this account for years to come.
Although the same film-scoring issues surfaced with future spots for the same client (i.e., the story, the edit, etc.), we now had a philosophy of sound, the corporate vision statement as it applied to audio. Every new piece of music, no matter what the melody, was designed using the same palette of sounds and was thus easily identifiable as this client's sonic identity. One needn't even see the visuals to appreciate that your "Friends at the Bank" brought you this piece of music.
The Power of Sound in Branding
I put forward that every sound asset used in a commercial, on an in-store kiosk, or on a Web site should be easily identifiable as the voice of your company. Do you know what your company is saying right now?
If music in a marketing context does its job, it will inform as well as entertain. And if consumers -- that is, your audience -- call the company switchboard and ask who wrote the music and where they can buy a CD of it, then maybe you and your client should actually produce a promotional CD that consumers can take home and listen to whenever they want.
Branding beyond advertising means creating an experience that is free of an overt pitch yet is compelling enough that consumers will nevertheless identify it with your brand. If you've produced a CD, for instance, folks will listen to it while they eat, work out, make love, and your company will be the underscore to their lives. Oats may be oats, but if I'm making babies to your music, then chances are my babies will be eating your oats.
Thursday, March 09, 2000
Music Producer as a Cool Hunter
The general public doesn’t often realize how much music is created as a reaction to something else.
Record companies will sometimes sign a band –not because they’re ground breaking revolutionary artists– but because they sound like the another ground breaking revolutionary artist on another label's roster; or because they sound like another demonstrably successful band on the label's own roster.
In Hollywood, film composers often receive their assignments in the form of rough edits of footage upon which the director has synched ‘temp’ music. That is, he or she has 'borrowed' existing music from another source, even another movie, and is using that music as both a placeholder and a creative brief to audio artisans who might be commissioned to produce final sound.
In effect, the movie director is asking the composer to use an existing score as the model for his own score. That's why every time you watch a chase scene, you're usually subjected to a version of French Horns over Tribal Timpani drums. Because everyone is essentially being asked to follow the same model.
Commercial ad music is also created in similar fashion, and advertising professionals commonly call temp tracks 'needle drops'.
My old employer, Elias Arts, compiled playlists of potential needle drops to present to clients as possible options to model a bespoke track upon, and called those playlists 'Concept Reels'.
However, while I appreciated the facility with which a temp track, needle drop or concept could communicate direction, I was never completely comfortable with the implication that professional composers would actually model a so-called original work using an existing work as a framework. As a producer, such temp tracks have many utilitarian uses, but as an artist myself, I still held a rather romantic notion of the independent composer.
The reality was, however, I was never going to stop the film, advertising and media industry from the practice of modeling tracks, one after the other. However, I did subscribe to the belief that I could train my clients to employ temp tracks not as models to A/B final production against, but as a lens for genre.
As I explained to my partner at Blister Media, an Audio Style Guide was less a model and more a 'creative brief' for composers and sound designers. It was, to be sure, and idea I borrowed from watching my parents and sister, all commercial artists at one time or another, when they worked with swatches and ‘Style Guides’ as a means to establish direction.
By my measure, an audio Style Guide would indicate musical or sonic direction by providing existing musical references for inspiration. But none of the ideas are meant to be used a model, and the less one listens to the Style Guide, the better. Ideally, the client will only here the track prior to production, and thereafter A/B against his or her initial impressions of the track. The reason being is that repeated listens of any track will often create familiarity in a given work's creators, such that they become attached to the track. Therefore: listen, analyze and draw conclusions that lend themselves to proceeding forward with a creative brief. Then put the style guide away.
How did work? It worked great:
Audio Style Guides clarify verbal instruction, provide convention, genre, trend analysis and may act as a tempo map. But they are never meant to represent a blue print for composition or design.
Style Guides might also include non audio sound sources, such as trend analysis and image swatches.
My theory is that –at least with commercial clients– advertisers don’t so much want to plagiarize another piece of music (although they do sometimes), but rather they are commissioning the composition an original work that captures the popular zeitgeist of a current trend, or the hallmarks of a broad genre.
Thus, it is important for commercial music producers to keep abreast of not just music styles, but of all the aspects and manifestations of a trend.
Of course, learn the methods of composition, performance and production by which a style is created. But also explore the reasons –beyond audio cues– as to why fans are attracted to any given artist, work, or genre. That means being a bit of a cultural anthropologist as well as a musician.
Why would a style guide designed to serve as a creative brief for an audio professional include non sonic sources? Certainly a piece of music can indicate direction to a composer, but equally: visual elements can serve to inspire both composer and client, by adding culturally significant anthropological evidence pertaining to a given demographic.
To borrow a phrase, be a cool hunter.
A cool hunter is analytical in the observation of trends/fashions as they sweep through the culture. It takes neutral eyes and ears to accurately identify and analyze any given trend, much less several; and then capably communicate the applicable variables to others assigned the task of creation, so that they might inform their work with the fruits of your research.
No doubt about it, derivative creations are standard operating procedure in the media production process. But better to have a comprehensive understanding of the intended audience, than to simply rely solely on whatever first stimulates one's ears via a ‘temp track’, 'concept' or 'needle drop'.
Record companies will sometimes sign a band –not because they’re ground breaking revolutionary artists– but because they sound like the another ground breaking revolutionary artist on another label's roster; or because they sound like another demonstrably successful band on the label's own roster.
In Hollywood, film composers often receive their assignments in the form of rough edits of footage upon which the director has synched ‘temp’ music. That is, he or she has 'borrowed' existing music from another source, even another movie, and is using that music as both a placeholder and a creative brief to audio artisans who might be commissioned to produce final sound.
In effect, the movie director is asking the composer to use an existing score as the model for his own score. That's why every time you watch a chase scene, you're usually subjected to a version of French Horns over Tribal Timpani drums. Because everyone is essentially being asked to follow the same model.
Commercial ad music is also created in similar fashion, and advertising professionals commonly call temp tracks 'needle drops'.
My old employer, Elias Arts, compiled playlists of potential needle drops to present to clients as possible options to model a bespoke track upon, and called those playlists 'Concept Reels'.
However, while I appreciated the facility with which a temp track, needle drop or concept could communicate direction, I was never completely comfortable with the implication that professional composers would actually model a so-called original work using an existing work as a framework. As a producer, such temp tracks have many utilitarian uses, but as an artist myself, I still held a rather romantic notion of the independent composer.
The reality was, however, I was never going to stop the film, advertising and media industry from the practice of modeling tracks, one after the other. However, I did subscribe to the belief that I could train my clients to employ temp tracks not as models to A/B final production against, but as a lens for genre.
As I explained to my partner at Blister Media, an Audio Style Guide was less a model and more a 'creative brief' for composers and sound designers. It was, to be sure, and idea I borrowed from watching my parents and sister, all commercial artists at one time or another, when they worked with swatches and ‘Style Guides’ as a means to establish direction.
By my measure, an audio Style Guide would indicate musical or sonic direction by providing existing musical references for inspiration. But none of the ideas are meant to be used a model, and the less one listens to the Style Guide, the better. Ideally, the client will only here the track prior to production, and thereafter A/B against his or her initial impressions of the track. The reason being is that repeated listens of any track will often create familiarity in a given work's creators, such that they become attached to the track. Therefore: listen, analyze and draw conclusions that lend themselves to proceeding forward with a creative brief. Then put the style guide away.
How did work? It worked great:
Audio Style Guides clarify verbal instruction, provide convention, genre, trend analysis and may act as a tempo map. But they are never meant to represent a blue print for composition or design.
Style Guides might also include non audio sound sources, such as trend analysis and image swatches.
My theory is that –at least with commercial clients– advertisers don’t so much want to plagiarize another piece of music (although they do sometimes), but rather they are commissioning the composition an original work that captures the popular zeitgeist of a current trend, or the hallmarks of a broad genre.
Thus, it is important for commercial music producers to keep abreast of not just music styles, but of all the aspects and manifestations of a trend.
Of course, learn the methods of composition, performance and production by which a style is created. But also explore the reasons –beyond audio cues– as to why fans are attracted to any given artist, work, or genre. That means being a bit of a cultural anthropologist as well as a musician.
Why would a style guide designed to serve as a creative brief for an audio professional include non sonic sources? Certainly a piece of music can indicate direction to a composer, but equally: visual elements can serve to inspire both composer and client, by adding culturally significant anthropological evidence pertaining to a given demographic.
To borrow a phrase, be a cool hunter.
A cool hunter is analytical in the observation of trends/fashions as they sweep through the culture. It takes neutral eyes and ears to accurately identify and analyze any given trend, much less several; and then capably communicate the applicable variables to others assigned the task of creation, so that they might inform their work with the fruits of your research.
No doubt about it, derivative creations are standard operating procedure in the media production process. But better to have a comprehensive understanding of the intended audience, than to simply rely solely on whatever first stimulates one's ears via a ‘temp track’, 'concept' or 'needle drop'.
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